It began 65 years ago as a gathering of yachtsmen and their families to exchange harbor and cruising data when much of the five Great Lakes was indeed a mystery. 

Boaters, usually comfortable aboard their own craft, often find extended cruising to be a challenge, as well as significantly expensive. Just imagine striking out six decades ago to journey - by either car or boat - from Lake Superior to Buffalo, New York, with no guidebook !

So in 1936, while much of America was recovering from an economic disaster, a few folks in the Chicago area met to exchange marine information. These people owned boats - sail and power boats - and cruising to the next harbor was a summer way of life for them. They created the Great Lakes Cruising Club (GLCC) to exchange information on harbors and cruising cautions for small boaters. But mainly the club formed for the simple, enjoyable camaraderie of getting together with other boaters.

From this humble beginning has grown a simply magnificent club, with thousands of members on all five Great Lakes. Many are the times I’ve flipped through their three heavy cruising books, carefully describing every harbor and connecting waterways. Just pick the harbor or the cruising area, and the club’s detailed discussion will guide you in with confidence. Content comes from members’ experience. No small part of Lake Superior’s details have been contributed by Bonnie Dahl, who wrote The Superior Way. She recently updated that volume.

This summer, for the first time in all these years, the annual GLCC gathering will come to western Lake Superior at Barker’s Island Marina in Superior, Wisconsin. It might well be the only time Lake Superior hosts this group, since the usual summer rendezvous are in some reasonably central location within the five lakes.

Lake Superior is almost the “forbidden fruit” for most Great Lakes cruisers, whether sail or fuel moves their vessels. 

No serious study fails to reflect the more than 300 vessels resting in the depths after losing a battle with weather, the Edmund Fitzgerald probably the most prominent.

Commitment by the state of Michigan in the 1960s to create “harbors of refuge” at least every 30 miles helped to make this year’s invitation possible. Some are simply a safe hiding place, but many have grown into major goals for cruising boaters, like the 100 berths for local and cruising vessels in Hancock.

Just as in 1936, camaraderie remains the big appeal to those of us who will get together in July. 

But it doesn’t take a call to meeting to get a warm welcome though the Great Lakes Cruising Club. A call to individual club members living in any port guarantees greeting on arrival for a boater.

Jim Marshall, left, and his wife, Jan Biga, far right, meet with sailboaters Beppie and Roeland Reyers during a Great Lakes Cruising Club gathering on Otter Island in Wisconsin’s Apostles Islands.

And the warm reception goes both ways. As the GLCC port captain for Duluth, I’ve responded to many telephone and radio calls over the years from fellow club members. As others have done for me, I arrange dockage and greet them upon their arrival. Many times I’ve joined with Sid Mason, port captain in neighboring Superior, to assure welcome.

Sometimes I’ve put my faithful Ford van at their disposal. Each time when the van comes back, without fail, it is full of gas.

Early evidence of club members’ enthusiasm for this farthest western venue has surprised Joe Radtke, manager of Barker’s Island Marina. He has set 85 docks aside for the July 15 through 18 gathering. Joe’s management - and the nearby Barker’s Island Inn - went a long way in selling the club on the idea of a Barker’s Island gathering. 

GLCC members will arrive by water, air and road this year when the distance from the eastern lakes is so great. From my own experience, our visitors are in for a treat. 

I’ll never forget  our own cruise to the 1994 GLCC Rendezvous at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. We returned via the eastern shore of the lake, an area we had never seen by boat. At each fuel or overnight stop, our GLCC pennant brought a pleasant greeting and offers of assistance from either the marina manager or the GLCC port captain. 

Boaters to this year’s Rendezvous also may want to “take the long way home.” They will find that GLCC has full documentation of the new Silver Bay (Minnesota) Marina and noted the developing harbor of refuge at Taconite Harbor. Thus, the long-hostile Minnesota north shore is safer to explore. 

What fun it will be this summer to share the incredible beauty of our Lake Superior with a host of boaters about to explore our lake, many for the first time, this summer. 

Let’s make them, oh, so welcome!

A selection of Jim Marshall’s columns of lake lore and his inland sea voyages has been published as Lake Superior Journal: Views from the Bridge by Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. Follow this link for more information.

Feedback: jrm@lakesuperior.com